ELARA'S POV
Fire swallows the carriage whole.
One second I'm staring at Vincent, demanding answers about the matching burn scars. The next, the world explodes in heat and noise and flying wood.
Something hits my head. Everything goes black.
When I wake up, I'm back in the fancy bedroom at Vincent's mansion. My head throbs. My ears ring. How did I get here?
"You're awake. Thank God."
Vincent sits in a chair beside the bed. His face is covered in soot and small cuts. His expensive coat is torn and burned.
"What happened?" My voice comes out raspy.
"Bomb. Someone planted a magical explosive under the carriage." His jaw clenches. "They waited until we were far from witnesses, then triggered it remotely."
I try to sit up but pain shoots through my ribs. "Who would—"
"Someone who knows you're alive." Vincent's gray eyes are dark with anger. "Someone who wants you dead before you can claim what's yours."
The throne. He means the throne.
"Did you see who did it?"
"No. They were long gone by the time I pulled you from the wreckage." He stands abruptly and walks to the window. "You're not safe, Elara. Not anywhere. But especially not here."
"Then why did you bring me back?"
He doesn't answer, just stares out at the grounds like he's looking for enemies in every shadow.
I notice the journal sitting on the bedside table—my mother's journal. The leather cover is even more scorched now, damaged from the explosion.
The moment Vincent leaves the room to get the doctor, I grab it.
My mother's handwriting fills the pages, but fire has eaten through most of the words. Only fragments remain:
"...Phoenix bloodline must be protected at all costs..."
"...they're coming for her... move again soon..."
"...the Queen's spies are everywhere... trust no one..."
"...if they find out what Elara truly is..."
The rest is ash and char.
"What am I?" I whisper to the burned pages. "What did you hide from me?"
A soft knock at the door makes me shove the journal under my pillow.
An old woman in a servant's uniform enters carrying fresh bandages. "Lord Ashwood sent me to check your wounds, miss."
She tends to my cuts with gentle hands, saying nothing. But her eyes keep darting to my neck—to the phoenix pendant.
"You recognize this, don't you?" I ask suddenly.
Her hands still. "I don't know what you mean, miss."
"Please. Everyone who sees it reacts. Tell me what it means."
The servant glances at the door nervously. "It's not my place to say, miss. Lord Ashwood should—"
"Lord Ashwood is hiding things from me." I grab her wrist. "People are trying to kill me and I don't even know why. Please. Help me."
She bites her lip, then leans close and whispers: "That pendant belongs to the Phoenix royal family. Anyone wearing it is marked for death. The Queen has spent nineteen years hunting down every last one of them." Her eyes fill with tears. "My own daughter wore one just like it. She was only sixteen when the soldiers came."
My stomach drops. "I'm sorry."
"Don't be sorry, child. Be smart. Hide that pendant. Hide yourself. And don't trust anyone—not even handsome lords with kind eyes who claim they want to protect you." She finishes wrapping my bandages and hurries out before I can ask what she means.
Don't trust Vincent.
But he saved me from the explosion. He's been taking care of me. He admitted his terrible past instead of lying.
Hasn't he?
I need to know more about who Vincent Ashwood really is.
When the mansion goes quiet for the night and Vincent still hasn't returned, I slip out of bed. My ribs hurt but I can move. I light a candle and creep through the dark hallways.
The mansion is huge—so many rooms and corridors that I quickly get lost. Everything is elegant and expensive, but something about this place feels cold. Empty. Like nobody actually lives here.
I'm about to give up and go back when I find it: a locked door at the end of an isolated hallway.
Unlike all the other fancy doors, this one is plain wood with three heavy locks. Someone really doesn't want people inside.
I kneel down and peer through the keyhole.
My blood turns to ice.
Maps cover the walls. Not just any maps—maps of my village. Of Cindergrace. Red X marks show every house, every family. Dates are written next to each X.
My family's house has the earliest date. Two weeks before the fire.
On a desk, I see stacks of documents. Official-looking papers with royal seals. And photographs—dozens of them—pinned to a board.
I squint, trying to see better through the tiny keyhole.
That's when I see the biggest photograph in the center of the board.
It's me.
Not recent-me. Baby-me.
I can't be more than two years old in the picture, wearing a white dress, laughing at whoever's taking the photo. And scrawled across it in red ink is one word:
TARGET.
My hands start shaking so badly the candlelight flickers.
Vincent has been tracking me. For years. He knew exactly who I was, where I was hidden, everything.
"Miss Crane? What are you doing here?"
I jump so hard I nearly drop the candle.
A different servant—a tall man with cold eyes—stands behind me. "This area is off-limits to guests."
"I was just exploring. I got lost." The lie sounds weak even to me.
"Come. I'll escort you back to your room." It's not a suggestion.
He grabs my elbow—not roughly, but firmly enough that I know I have no choice. He leads me through the twisted hallways back to my bedroom.
"Lord Ashwood will be very interested to hear about your... curiosity," he says before closing the door.
I hear the lock click from the outside.
I'm a prisoner.
Panic rises in my throat. I run to the window, but we're three stories up. The door won't budge no matter how hard I pull.
Vincent has been lying about everything. The maps. The photographs. The word "TARGET" on my baby picture. He's been planning something since the beginning.
Was saving me even real? Or is this all part of some bigger plan?
I pace the room like a caged animal, my mind racing. When footsteps echo in the hallway, I grab the candelabra from the dresser as a weapon.
The door unlocks. Vincent enters.
He's cleaned up from the explosion, changed into fresh clothes. He looks calm. Casual. Like he hasn't been keeping maps of my dead village in a secret room.
"Going somewhere?" He nods at the candelabra in my hands.
"What am I, Vincent?" I demand. "What's TARGET mean? Why do you have photographs of me as a baby?"
His expression doesn't change. "You went into my study."
"Why did you have maps of Cindergrace dated BEFORE the fire?"
"Sit down. Let me explain."
"No! Explain right now or I'll—" I raise the candelabra threateningly.
Vincent moves faster than I can see. One second he's across the room. The next, he has my wrist, gently but firmly removing the candelabra from my grip.
"I need you to listen," he says quietly. "Yes, I've been tracking you. Yes, I knew where you were hidden. But not to hurt you—to protect you."
"From who? Yourself?"
"From my mother!" His voice rises for the first time. "Do you think the Queen stops looking for threats just because years pass? She has spies everywhere, informants in every village. I've spent seven years staying one step ahead of her, keeping her attention away from Cindergrace."
"Then why do you have TARGET written on my picture?"
His jaw tightens. "Because that's what you are to her. The biggest target in the kingdom. I kept that board to remind myself of the stakes. Every day I look at it and remember that if I make one mistake, you die."
I want to believe him. God, I want to believe him so badly.
"The dates on the map," I press. "Explain those."
Vincent hesitates. "I was monitoring magical disturbances. Your power was starting to leak out as you got older. Small incidents you probably don't remember—fires starting when you got angry, heat waves when you were scared. I was tracking them, trying to contain them before someone else noticed."
It makes sense. But something still feels wrong.
"Why lock me in my room?"
"Because someone just tried to blow us up!" He runs a hand through his hair, frustrated. "Because you're not safe wandering around alone! Because—" He stops himself.
"Because what?"
"Because you're starting to remember," he says finally. "And when you remember everything, you'll either forgive me or kill me. I need to make sure you survive long enough to make that choice."
Before I can respond, exhaustion crashes over me like a wave. My legs buckle. Vincent catches me before I hit the floor.
"What's happening?" My vision blurs. My whole body feels heavy and wrong.
"The explosion took more out of you than you realize. You need rest." He lifts me easily and carries me to the bed.
"No, it's not that." My tongue feels thick. "I've been feeling sick for days. Dizzy. Tired. Different."
Vincent's face goes very still. "Different how?"
"I don't know. Just... different. Wrong." Black spots dance in my vision.
He sets me down on the bed and stares at me with an expression I can't read. Fear? Realization? Horror?
"Elara," he says slowly. "When was your last monthly bleeding?"
The question is so unexpected I don't understand at first. Then I do.
My heart stops.
When WAS my last monthly bleeding? I try to remember. Before the fire. Definitely before the fire. But that was...
Oh God.
"No," I whisper. "That's not possible."
"The night at the tavern," Vincent says, his voice strange and distant. "Before the fire. We were together. If you're..."
He can't even finish the sentence.
I do the math in my head. It's been almost two months since that night. Two months since the fire. Two months since everything changed.
Two months since I apparently slept with Vincent and don't remember it.
"I can't be pregnant," I say. But even as I deny it, everything clicks into place. The exhaustion. The dizziness. The nausea. The way my magic keeps flaring out of control.
Vincent sinks into a chair like his legs won't hold him anymore.
"If you're carrying a child," he breathes, "if you're carrying MY child—a Phoenix heir with Ironhart blood..." He looks at me with pure terror in his eyes. "My mother won't just kill you. She'll cut you open and take the baby to dissect its magic. She'll study it, weaponize it, destroy it."
The room spins. This can't be real. None of this can be real.
"We need to be sure," Vincent says, standing abruptly. "I'll get a healer. Someone we can trust."
"There's no one we can trust!" I'm shouting now, hysteria rising. "You said it yourself—spies are everywhere!"
"Then I'll test you myself." He pulls a small knife from his belt. "Blood magic. It's the fastest way."
"You want to cut me?"
"Just a drop. I promise." He kneels beside the bed, holding out his hand. "Please. We need to know what we're dealing with."
Everything in me screams not to trust him. But I need to know too.
I give him my hand.
He pricks my finger with the knife. A single drop of blood wells up. He catches it on a piece of parchment and whispers words in a language I don't understand.
The blood glows.
First red, then orange, then gold.
Then it splits into two glowing drops.
Vincent's face drains of all color.
"What does that mean?" But I already know. Deep down, I already know.
"It means," he whispers, "you're pregnant. About eight weeks. And..." He swallows hard. "The baby has magic. Very strong magic. Both Phoenix fire and Ironhart shadow."
The world tilts sideways.
I'm pregnant. With the child of the man who killed my family. A child that's part Phoenix royalty, part enemy blood. A child that people will hunt across kingdoms to destroy or weaponize.
"What do we do?" My voice sounds small and scared.
Vincent looks at me with something like awe mixed with terror.
"We run," he says. "Tonight. Before anyone else finds out. Before—"
A loud knock at the door cuts him off.
"Lord Ashwood!" A servant's panicked voice. "The Queen's carriages have arrived! Her Majesty is here with the Royal Guard!"
Vincent and I lock eyes.
His mother. The woman who murdered my family. The Queen who's been hunting me for nineteen years.
She's here.
Right now.